Fill in the blanks · solved example
Choose the pair of words that fits both blanks most appropriately. The committee's report was so ______ that even its harshest critics found it difficult to ______ the conclusions.
- vague / accept
- thorough / refuteCorrect
- brief / summarise
- partial / support
- delayed / postpone
Solution
'Even its harshest critics' signals a concession, so the report must have a quality that works against criticism. 'Thorough' supplies that, and 'refute' is what critics would want to do but cannot. Check the others: a vague report would be easy to reject, not hard to accept; 'brief / summarise' produces no contrast at all; a partial report would be easy for critics to attack; 'delayed / postpone' is unrelated to the conclusions.